The Capitol Hill headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the largest recipient of donations from partners at Thornton. (Photo: Google)

OpenSecrets Blog and The Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team partnered on this story; it was published by both outlets.

Federal prosecutors in Boston have opened a grand jury investigation into potentially illegal campaign contributions from lawyers at the Thornton Law Firm, a leading donor to Democrats around the country, according to two people familiar with the probe.

The U.S. Attorney’s office is one of three agencies now looking into the Boston-based personal injury firm’s practice of reimbursing its partners for millions of dollars in political donations, according to the two people. The law firm has insisted that the donations were legal, but, soon after the Globe and the Center for Responsive Politics revealed the firm’s practice, politicians began returning hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.

Federal prosecutors as well as state and federal campaign finance regulators are investigating whether Thornton and its lawyers violated the law by paying “bonuses” to firm partners in the exact amount of their political donations and often on the same day, the people familiar with the investigations said. The firm’s attorney acknowledges the payments went on for a decade.

Repaying donors for their contributions is generally illegal because it conceals the true source of the donations. The lawyers would be considered “straws donors” — or front men — for the firm itself, allowing the firm to vastly exceed campaign donation limits.

Brian Kelly, a former federal prosecutor who is representing Thornton Law, would not comment on “the existence of any investigations,” but said in a statement that the firm “intends to cooperate fully if asked about its donation program and it is confident the firm complied with all applicable laws and regulations.

“Thornton’s fundraising program was vetted by an outside law firm ten years ago and was overseen by an outside accountant,” wrote Kelly, a partner at Nixon Peabody. He said the reimbursements came out of each lawyer’s own equity — or ownership — in the firm.

If the grand jury indicts the firm and its lawyers, Thornton could be the biggest so-called “straw donor” case ever brought nationwide. Between 2010 and 2014 alone, lawyers for the firm, which specializes in asbestos cases, donated $3.4 million to candidates and the Democratic Party, especially to Senate candidates who opposed overhauling the asbestos litigation system.

“There are serious penalties for these violations,” said Brett Kappel, a campaign finance lawyer in Washington, D.C. “Here you potentially have multiple violations of the prohibition on contributions in the name of another, each one of which would be separately charged.”

Violations involving straw donations of $25,000 or more could bring a sentence of five years in prison, for each count, Kappel said.

Two years ago, the former CEO of the Fiesta Bowl, John Junker, and four others pleaded guilty to a “straw donor” scheme in which employees were reimbursed more than $45,000 for political contributions they were encouraged to make. Junker served four months in federal prison and four months in a halfway house.

The largest civil penalties ever levied by the FEC for “straw donations” came in the late 1990s when Audiovox Corp. and a number of individuals were fined $849,000 for a series of contributions as small as a few hundred dollars. However, companies have sometimes paid millions in penalties to settle criminal charges.

The reported grand jury investigation comes just two weeks after the Globe and the Center for Responsive Politics documented that three partners at the firm — founder Michael Thornton, former House assistant majority leader Garrett Bradley and David Strouss — received about $1.4 million in bonuses to offset their campaign contributions over a five-year period. In at least 30 cases, Thornton was also reimbursed for donations made by his wife, Amy, based on a review of internal payroll records obtained by the Globe and the Center.

The firm started offering bonuses to offset partners’ political donations at a time when the partners were being asked to donate more and more money, causing some grumbling. The reimbursement policy was so complicated that some lawyers at the firm said they didn’t understand it, but they were still happy to get their money back.

Since the Globe story ran, at least 19 candidates and one campaign committee announced that they have returned more than $900,000 to lawyers at the firm, or gave the money to the U.S. Treasury or a charity. They include Hillary Clinton, Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-Mass.) and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh.

State Attorney General Maura Healey, who called for investigations of the firm, also returned donations she received from Thornton lawyers.

One of the biggest recipients of Thornton’s largesse, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told the Globe and the Center on Tuesday night that it, too, was giving up contributions from partners at the firm. Previously, committee officials had indicated they were awaiting a review of the donations by its attorneys, but a person at the committee said the organization has sent $267,000 to Treasury. However, records show that contributions from Thornton employees to the DSCC over the last 10 years total $1.5 million.

Campaign finance specialists say that Thornton attorneys could face charges for violating a variety of state and federal laws, including the Federal Election Campaign Act’s prohibitions on “contributions in the name of another.” Thornton lawyers could also face allegations that they illegally caused candidates receiving their money to file false campaign finance reports by indicating that the lawyers were the sources of the funds, when it was actually the firm.

In addition, the specialists said, Thornton lawyers who participated in the contribution reimbursement system could be charged with conspiracy.

A campaign finance watchdog group filed a complaint against Thornton with the Federal Election Commission on Nov. 2, a step that automatically triggers an FEC review. Now that the US Attorney is involved, however, prosecutors could ask the FEC to hold off on any investigation, and the agency could pick it up again after the criminal case is over and then seek to impose civil penalties, according to Dan Petalas, a former acting general counsel of the FEC who is now in private practice in Washington.

The Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance is also looking into whether the law firm was the “true source” of the more than $260,000 in donations to state and local politicians lawyers at Thornton Law firm have made, according to two people briefed on the matter. If the regulators find wrongdoing, they can impose penalties, called civil forfeitures, or refer the matter to the state Attorney General for possible criminal prosecution.

This case has the potential to be the largest “straw donor” investigation in state history.

The biggest civil forfeiture in recent years was $185,000 paid last month by Canton businessman, Vincent Barletta, who provided $35,500 to employees to make political contributions. In 2015, the owners of Capitol Waste of East Boston, a trash company with contracts with Boston and other communities, agreed to pay $120,000 to the state and four cities after OCPF found the owners gave employees $38,000 to donate to political candidates.

Milton Valencia of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

UPDATE: On April 18, 2018, a special prosecutor appointed to lead a criminal investigation of Thornton Law Firm’s practices said he didn’t find “sufficient evidence” that the firm had violated state campaign finance law. The FEC has yet to rule on a 2016 civil complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center.

]]>https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/federal-prosecutors-open-criminal-grand-jury-probe-of-thornton-law-firm-donations/feed/0Calls for investigation of Thornton Law mount; Warren vows to return donationshttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/federal-election-commission-receives-formal-complaint-on-thornton-law-donations/
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/federal-election-commission-receives-formal-complaint-on-thornton-law-donations/#respondWed, 02 Nov 2016 19:28:53 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=17153This story was co-published by The Boston Globe and OpenSecrets Blog. A money-in-politics watchdog group and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey…

A money-in-politics watchdog group and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on Wednesday called for a federal investigation of possible campaign finance violations at Thornton Law Firm in Boston as the number of politicians disavowing the lawyers’ money continued to grow.

An aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that she, too, will return contributions from Thornton lawyers, after initially saying that she would wait for the results of an investigation. At least 21 politicians nationwide have now said they would return or give away more than $600,000 in donations from Thornton, a leading funder of the Democratic party.

The Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based campaign finance watchdog organization, filed a formal complaint against Thornton and three of its lawyers with the Federal Election Commission, arguing that the attorneys illegally acted as “straw donors” for the law firm, which gave the lawyers “bonuses” that offset their donations.

Under FEC rules, the agency must ask Thornton and the individual attorneys for a response within five days.

A spokeswoman for Healey, who has already said she would return Thornton donations, said she supports both federal and state investigations of the law firm.

“The Attorney General is concerned by reports about campaign donations and alleged bonus reimbursements at the Thornton Law Firm and believes it is important that the Federal Election Commission and (Massachusetts) Office of Campaign and Political Finance … immediately investigate the matter,” said Jillian Fennimore, the Healey spokeswoman.

A lawyer for Thornton Law Firm has insisted that the law firm’s contribution system is legal since the lawyers were receiving the bonuses out of their equity — or ownership — in the firm.

“We’ll review the complaint, but the law firm has done nothing wrong,” said Brian Kelly, a lawyer for Nixon Peabody who represents the Thornton Law Firm. He declined further comment.

The calls for investigation follow a story published Oct. 29 by The Boston Globe and the Center for Responsive Politics describing a system used by Thornton to pay hundreds of “bonuses” to partners that matched their campaign donations.

Three partners at the firm — Michael Thornton, Garrett Bradley, and David Strouss — contributed more than $1.6 million over five years, mostly to Democratic candidates and the party. The partners received bonuses totaling about $1.4 million, often in the exact amount of the donation and on the same day.

Almost as soon as the story was published, politicians — especially those up for election — began disavowing the Thornton donations. Sen. Edward Markey (Mass.) and Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (Mass.) were the latest to say they are returning donations from the lawyers or contributing an equivalent amount to charity or the U.S. Treasury. They join Senate candidates Jason Kander (Mo.), Katie McGinty (Penn.), Patrick Murphy (Fla.) and other Democratic politicians — many of them in tight races for Senate seats — to say they were giving up the money.

A spokewoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has received $1.5 million from Thornton partners in the past decade, said the committee was “reviewing” the contributions.

Warren, one of the biggest recipients of donations from Thornton lawyers, initially said she would await the results of an investigation to decide whether to return the money. On Wednesday, however, an aide said that she would give back the money out of an abundance of caution. Records show that Warren and her PAC have received nearly $130,000 in Thornton money.

The 11-page complaint from the Campaign Legal Center argues that both the Thornton lawyers and the Thornton law firm violated federal election law. Giving the lawyers offsetting bonuses for their political donations was a way to hide the fact that the law firm was giving the money, the center argued, allowing the law firm to greatly exceed campaign donation limits.

Thornton Law Firm “misled the public . . . about the true sources of support for those candidates and political committees,” according to the complaint.

The complaint also casts doubt on the law firm’s explanation that its system was legal because it deducted the reimbursements from each partner’s capital account — representing his equity in the firm. Under this system, each lawyer would have to settle the account when they left the law firm, repaying any outstanding bonuses.

The firm’s explanation is “not credible,” the Campaign Legal Center complaint maintains. One former employee told the Globe that the reimbursement policy was started after partners began complaining that they were being asked to contribute thousands of dollars to political causes each year.

If the Thornton lawyers were receiving bonuses that came from their own money, the Center contended, “then the reimbursement program would appear to provide little incentive to make contributions and would do little to address the ‘grousing’” mentioned in the story.”

But Thornton does have defenders. One campaign finance expert agreed with Kelly.

“It is likely that they did not violate the law and that would be my position,” said Vincent DeVito, of the firm Bowditch & Dewey LLP. He added that it is acceptable for the firm to pay the partner a bonus for each donation “as long as it comes out of their equity position or income. The (donation) doesn’t have to come out of their pocket.”

Thornton will have 15 days to respond after the FEC sends the formal complaint. Then, FEC lawyers will make a recommendation on further action for the commissioners to vote on; possibilities include opening a formal investigation, sending the matter to arbitration and dropping it.

People have gone to jail for reimbursing political donations. Two years ago, the former CEO of the Fiesta Bowl, John Junker, was sentenced to eight months for a scheme in which the Bowl reimbursed employees for at least $46,000 in donations to federal, state and local politicians using payments labeled as “bonuses.”

UPDATE: On April 18, 2018, a special prosecutor appointed to lead a criminal investigation of Thornton Law Firm’s practices said he didn’t find “sufficient evidence” that the firm had violated state campaign finance law. The FEC has yet to rule on a 2016 civil complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center.

]]>https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/federal-election-commission-receives-formal-complaint-on-thornton-law-donations/feed/0Millions in political donations fueled by matching bonuses at Boston law firmhttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/10/millions-in-political-donations-fueled-by-matching-bonuses-at-boston-law-firm/
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/10/millions-in-political-donations-fueled-by-matching-bonuses-at-boston-law-firm/#respondSun, 30 Oct 2016 01:02:34 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=17008OpenSecrets Blog and The Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team partnered on this story; it was published by both outlets. Jon Tester didn’t…

]]>OpenSecrets Blog and The Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team partnered on this story; it was published by both outlets.

Michael Thornton and his wife made more than $1 million in campaign contributions between 2009 and 2014; he received “bonuses” covering most of it. (Globe photo)

Jon Tester didn’t come all the way from Montana for the scrambled eggs and bacon. The senator, virtually unknown in Boston, was in a conference room at the Thornton Law Firm that June morning to cash in at one of the most reliable stops on the Democratic fundraising circuit, a law firm that pours millions into the coffers of the party and its politicians.

Tester, a massive, jovial man who raises livestock on his family farm, was more compelling than many of their other breakfast guests, all of them political candidates the firm hoped would defend the interests of trial attorneys. But the drill was basically the same. The personal injury lawyers listened politely for a few minutes, then returned to their offices. And Tester walked away with $26,400 in checks.

But a striking thing happened the day Tester visited in 2010. Partner David C. Strouss received a payment from the firm labelled as a “bonus” that exactly equaled his $2,400 contribution to Tester’s campaign, the maximum allowed. A few days later, partner Garrett Bradley — until recently the House assistant majority leader in the Massachusetts legislature — got a bonus, too, exactly matching his $2,400 gift to Tester.

This pattern of payments — contributions offset by bonus payments — was commonplace at Thornton, according to a review of law firm records by the Spotlight Team and the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based non-profit that tracks campaign finance data.

From 2010 through 2014, Strouss and Bradley along with founding partner Michael Thornton and his wife donated nearly $1.6 million to Democratic party fundraising committees and a parade of politicians from Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada to Hawaii gubernatorial candidate David Ige to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Over the same span, the lawyers received $1.4 million listed as “bonuses” in Thornton Law Firm records; more than 280 of the contributions precisely matched bonuses that were paid within 10 days.

That payback system, which involved other partners as well, helped make Thornton the 11th-ranked law firm nationally for political contributions in 2014, according to data analyzed by the Center, even though the firm is not among the 100 biggest in Massachusetts, much less the U.S.

Thornton, through a spokesman, said its donation reimbursement program was reviewed by outside lawyers and complied with applicable laws. Campaign finance experts said that without reviewing the firm’s records, they cannot say the payback system breaks the law, but it raises numerous red flags.

That’s because reimbursing people for their political donations is generally illegal, several experts said. When political donors are repaid for their donations, it can conceal the real source of contributions, and enable the unnamed source of the funds to exceed state and federal contribution limits. And in some states — Massachusetts among them — political donations to state candidates from corporations and partnerships such as Thornton Law Firm are flatly illegal.

Reimbursing donors is “among the most serious campaign violations in the view of both the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice,” said Daniel Petalas, an attorney who served as acting general counsel of the FEC until September.

“Using straw donors to make contributions is illegal,” said Larry Noble, general counsel of the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center and a former general counsel of the FEC. “People can go and have gone to prison for this.”

Thornton officials declined to comment, instead hiring a former federal prosecutor to respond to the Globe’s questions.

The ex-prosecutor, Brian Kelly, said that the bonuses should not have been called bonuses at all because they were paid from the lawyers’ own money. He said an accountant deducted the payments from their equity, or ownership, in the firm. When lawyers leave Thornton Law and cash in their equity, he said, their financial settlement with Thornton would be reduced by the amount of the bonuses.

Kelly provided a written statement from Michael Thornton saying that “an error made internally” led to the payments being called bonuses. Thornton said he changed the way they were labelled after several yearsin 2015 when he discovered the mistake.

“It’s obviously not a crime to make lots of donations to politicians and they certainly did that,” said Kelly. “But their donation program was vetted by prior counsel and an outside accountant and the firm made every effort to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.”

However, campaign finance experts were skeptical about the system Kelly describes, saying it could allow partners to go years before repaying the firm for the bonuses. Regulators could view the bonuses as open-ended loans, they said, making them hidden — and illegal — contributions from the law firm.

“I think they need to be very careful,” said James Kahl, former deputy general counsel of the FEC. “The big red flag is monies being advanced and the truing up doesn’t happen for many years.”

Kelly, who gave varying explanations of the reimbursement policy since first being asked about it in July, declined to provide a copy of a legal opinion that he said justified the repayment program. He also declined to say whether lawyers who left the firm were required to pay when the bonuses they received exceeded their equity in the firm.

But one thing is certain: The policy was so complicated that at least some lawyers at the firm didn’t understand it, said former employees. They were just happy to get their money back.

***

Michael Thornton, a former Marine who served in Vietnam, made his name in the law by becoming a national leader in handling asbestos-related cases, especially those in which victims suffered mesothelioma, a rare but deadly cancer caused by asbestos exposure. Thornton lawyers have handled thousands of such cases, made millions, and even helped to underwrite research into mesothelioma.

But that pipeline of profits was threatened just over a decade ago when some leading politicians, including President George W. Bush, moved to limit damages in class action lawsuits and to allow the victims of asbestos exposure to file their claims for compensation directly to a national trust fund — bypassing lawyers who typically receive a third of any award.

That’s when Thornton learned the power of political donations.

The firm’s partners contributed heavily to mostly Democratic politicians who, they hoped, would thwart efforts to create the trust fund.

“If it passed, the firm would close,” said a former employee who feared retaliation if his name were used. ‘Hence the beginning of the political donations.”

They gave more and more each year, from $257,300 to federal candidates and the Democratic party in the 2003-2004 election cycle to nearly $1.1 million a decade later, according to the Center — quadrupling their contributions.

Thornton is a small firm — usually 10 or fewer equity partners— but the lawyers punch well above their weight in political fundraising. In the two year election cycle ending in 2014, for example, lawyers at Thornton Naumes, as the firm was then called, donated more than much larger multi-national firms such as Greenberg Traurig a Miami-based law firm that claims 38 offices and 2,000 attorneys.

Over the course of three election cycles — 2010, 2012 and 2014 — Thornton partners contributed more than $3.4 million to candidates and the party nationwide, especially Democratic Senate candidates who opposed overhauling the asbestos litigation system.

The partners have been major benefactors to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party’s Senate fundraising arm. From 2007 through the middle of this year, Thornton partners gave the DSCC, which has higher contribution limits than do candidates, more than $1.5 million.

Just one Republican senator has collected contributions from Thornton’s lawyers. Lindsey Graham, an idiosyncratic South Carolinian and former trial lawyer himself, received $62,800 over the last decade. Graham helped peel away enough GOP support in the Senate to ensure the trust fund bill’s death on Valentine’s Day, 2006, according to former Senate aides.

Thornton’s lawyers were especially generous to Vice President Joe Biden, one of Washington’s strongest advocates for trial lawyers, contributing more than $78,000 to his campaigns from 2003 to 2008.

During President Obama and Biden’s reelection campaign in 2012, Michael Thornton hosted a fundraiser for the Obama Victory Fund at his house in Cambridge where Biden was the guest of honor. Some of the biggest donors — some Thornton partners gave $20,000 — were escorted into a private room and offered the chance to be photographed with Biden, said someone who was there. Thornton records show the lawyers were reimbursed for those donations.

Vice President Joe Biden was a favorite of Michael Thornton’s. Biden collected $78,000 for his campaigns from 2003 through 2008. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Thornton declined to speak to the Globe and the Center, but he has been vocal about his support for Biden, who once chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and twice helped block legislation that would have established the asbestos trust fund.

“Sen. Biden has been a trial-lawyer advocate for many terms in the Senate,” Thornton was quoted as saying in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2008. “We represent victims, we think it’s in the best interest of our clients if they have an opportunity to go to court. Sen. Biden agrees.”

Once Michael Thornton’s willingness to raise large amounts of money became known among lawyers and politicians, the American Association for Justice, the trial lawyers’ Washington-based lobbying group, increasingly turned to the firm’s lawyers for help, even for little known candidates running in states far from Boston.

“At first it happened every three or four months, and then it was sometimes three or four times each month,” even though the threat of asbestos litigation reform had faded, said the former employee who requested anonymity.

As the number of fundraisers started piling up, partners began to grouse. Even though Thornton called the contributions “voluntary,” partners felt pressured to give, according to the former employee. After all, Michael Thornton was the firm’s lead partner with enormous sway over what the other partners were paid.

So, according to three former employees, Thornton Law Firm adopted the donation reimbursement system.

Bonus checks that were reviewed by the Globe made clear that the payments were for political donations, with notations giving the name of the politician the partner had donated to.

The Globe and the Center for Responsive Politics reviewed records covering payments to three senior partners — Thornton, Bradley and Strouss — who are among the top shareholders in the firm. Then, the Globe and the Center matched the bonuses against federal, state and local campaign records.

Campaign contribution and law firm records from 2010 through 2014 show that Thornton donated the most, and the firm gave him bonuses that matched not only his donations, but at least 33 made by his wife, Amy, who runs an investment fund. The couple donated just over $1 million between 2010 and 2014 and Thornton received $862,450 in off-setting bonuses.

Michael Thornton, through a spokesman, denied that the law firm reimbursed his wife’s donations.

Bradley made donations of $340,535 and received almost as much in bonuses — $339,000 over that period, the records shows.

David Strouss gave $205,150 over the five years and received almost the same amount in bonuses — $197,150.

By donating as individuals, lawyers for the firm were able to collectively give far more to individual candidates in a single year than the firm could have donated directly under federal law.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York received $52,000 from Thornton partners over a 10-day period in 2013. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Over a 10-day period in 2013, for example, Thornton partners gave $52,000 to Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, a subcommittee chairman on the Senate Judiciary Committee — 20 times as much as the $2,600 that the partnership itself could have donated. (Corporate contributions are illegal under federal law, but partnership contributions are not.)

In 2012, the lawyers gave Warren $42,200, 16 times as much as the firm could have given her directly.

Thornton lawyers also donated more than $260,000 to state and local politicians in Massachusetts from 2010 to 2014. If those donations were determined to have actually been made by the firm — because the lawyers were reimbursed — they would be illegal since political contributions from corporations or partnerships are prohibited in Massachusetts.

There’s no indication that any of the politicians who received Thornton donations knew anything about the law firm’s questionable reimbursement system.

***

The Federal Election Commission does allow partners in a law firm to donate to political campaigns, but only if the funds clearly come from the partner’s own money. According to FEC rules, a partnership can contribute on behalf of its partners, but then must promptly deduct the amount of the donation from the next profit sharing payments to the partners called “partnership distributions.”

That’s not what Thornton did.

Brian Kelly, Thornton’s outside counsel, said the firm’s practice is legal because, at the end of each quarter, the firm’s accountant deducts the political donations from something called the “capital account” of each partner with the firm.

The capital account is a way for the accountant to keep track of the partners’ share of equity in the firm. The deductions from the capital account are on paper only, Kelly acknowledged. When partners leave the firm, they may be entitled to a payment from the capital account that Kelly says is reduced by the amount of reimbursements received.

But reimbursing partners out of their equity in the firm — as Kelly said Thornton did — is likely illegal, said Brett Kappel, a Washington D.C. lawyer who specializes in campaign finance.

“If they were legitimate contributions, they should have been deducted from their partnership distributions,” Kappel said.

Senior partner Bradley abruptly resigned his position as assistant majority leader in the state House of Representatives on June 27 after the Globe had begun asking questions about his firm’s business practices. His decision stunned colleagues, coming so late in the election cycle that there was no time to take his name off the November ballot.

Bradley explained at the time that Michael Thornton was retiring and he was being promoted to managing partner of his law firm. As a result, he wanted to focus on his legal work. Thornton is now chairman of the firm.

“I wouldn’t have the time to do this (legislative) job the way it should be done” because of the promotion, Bradley explained to Statehouse News Service. “It’s bittersweet for me.”

Some campaign finance experts say they expect Thornton’s reimbursement system is likely to raise suspicions among regulators and law enforcement officials alike.

“The use of the word ‘bonus’ for these payments combined with the fact that they so closely matched the amounts and timing of the donations would certainly capture the attention of the general counsel’s office at the FEC — and given how much was involved, the public integrity section at the Department of Justice,” said Kappel, the Washington campaign finance lawyer.

The Globe and the Center could not find another law firm that used a similar reimbursement system — Thornton itself stopped the reimbursements when the Globe and the Center began asking about it.

“I’ve been a partner at two law firms and have made many political donations,” said Leonard Kesten, a partner at Brody, Hardoon, Perkins and Kesten in Boston, “but I’ve never seen anything like this. It seems very peculiar.”

Meanwhile, in the Senate, measures to change the asbestos litigation system continue to pop up. Earlier this year, the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act passed the House, but ran into opposition from Schumer of New York, a top recipient of Thornton donations.

UPDATE: On April 18, 2018, a special prosecutor appointed to lead a criminal investigation of Thornton Law Firm’s practices said he didn’t find “sufficient evidence” that the firm had violated state campaign finance law. The FEC has yet to rule on a 2016 civil complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center.